Solid-state devices are used in large quantities in electronics, including very high security equipment maintained by the military and security organizations. Equipment using sensitive information contained in integrated circuits may still be retrievable unless permanently disabled, so the integrated circuits should be deliberately and quickly destroyed to provide assurance that the information is not accessible.
Integrated circuits are quite susceptible to destruction by the incidental discharge of static electricity through the equipment. Nevertheless, the addition of static protection structures has greatly reduced the integrated circuits susceptibility to static discharge, and increased the difficulty of deliberate destruction.
Conventional methods for the deliberate destruction of devices employ large power supplies and capacitive discharge systems using bulky components that apply sustained current to the devices until destruction is achieved. For example, existing devices for deliberate destruction of circuits may employ power supplies of thousands of volts, even tens of thousands of volts, and capacitors of five thousand μF or more. Thus, prior methods of disabling integrated circuits are typically slower than desired, are too bulky, and not easily scalable. Thus, new systems and methods for disabling integrated circuits are desirable.